He had but a few hundred dollars in cash, but found he did not need a great deal. Before leaving the city, he had bought a light collar-and-cuff ironing machine that cost him $50, while $25 more paid for a few little accessories he knew he would need.
He rented a store room some distance from the business center, hired a couple of experienced women, and advertised that he would do better work than the steam laundries of the city could do, and at lower prices, calling particular attention to the fact that the machinery in the big laundries tear the clothes to pieces. He also offered to do mending of men’s articles free, and by turning out high-class work from the very first he soon had all the business he could handle.
PLAN No. 190. MAKING INKS AND MUCILAGE
Everybody uses ink, and most people need mucilage at one time or another, so that the making and selling of these necessary articles afforded a man in a small western town a very good money-making opportunity, which he improved with considerable profit.
Books of formulas for making these things can be procured from a number of sources, but the formula for preparing indelible marking ink proved to be one of the most profitable of them all. This ink is made by taking equal parts of green vitriol and cinnabar, powdered as finely as possible, and mixing them with unboiled linseed oil. When strained through a cloth this makes a fine indelible ink, and he found a good demand for it from laundries, department stores and various other places.
He employed salesmen to canvass near-by towns, and in a few months had established a permanent and profitable business of his own. The ingredients for these articles cost but little, the labels and bottles being the principal items of expense, and the margin was sufficiently large to justify him in paying a liberal commission to agents.
PLAN No. 191. NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT
In every town, large or small, there are always news items of more or less interest, mainly local, but often of national importance, and the man or woman who can collect these items, put them in readable shape, and send them to the newspapers in the neighborhood cities, or larger towns, can always derive something of an income from this source. The editor of one of the largest and most influential of western dailies thus relates how he began his newspaper career in this manner:
“I lived in a town of about 1,000 inhabitants, which did not boast of a weekly newspaper, and yet there were many local happenings that would have been of great interest if published in the city paper, which had a rather extensive circulation in the town.
“I wrote to the editor of this paper and offered my services as correspondent from my town. He was glad to secure my services, and offered me a very fair rate of compensation, based upon a certain amount per column.